Are Democrats finally growing a backbone? Many Senate Democrats are now prepared to let the government shut down over ICE funding—and the execution of Alex Pretti is why.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer announced Sunday that his caucus will block the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, according to the AP. If Congress can’t pass the remaining spending bills by midnight Friday, parts of the federal government go dark.

WHAT’S GOING ON: This is the second fatal shooting by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis this month. Renee Good, a mother of three, was killed earlier in January. Now Pretti—an American citizen, an ICE nurse—is dead too. Democrats had already been furious. Now they’re done negotiating.

“Federal agents cannot murder people in broad daylight and face zero consequences,” wrote Washington Senator Patty Murray, who had been pushing colleagues to vote for the DHS bill. She’s now a hard no.

Schumer called the situation in Minnesota “appalling” and said Democrats “will not provide the votes to proceed to the appropriations bill if the DHS funding bill is included.”

THE DETAILS: Republicans control the Senate but need Democratic support to pass spending bills. Six of the twelve annual funding bills have already become law. The remaining six—including the one covering Homeland Security—need to pass by Friday or funding lapses.

Democrats want the DHS portion stripped out and rewritten with new restrictions: requiring ICE agents to use warrants, mandating better training, and keeping Border Patrol on the actual border instead of conducting interior raids.

BUT BUT BUT: Republicans are in a bind. Some, like Senators Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis, are calling for “thorough investigations.” Others, like Lindsey Graham, are telling Democrats to back off and blaming “sanctuary city policies.”

The White House has reached out to Democrats, but according to a Senate aide, they haven’t offered “any realistic solutions.”

WHY IT MATTERS: This isn’t just procedural drama. Democrats are hopefully drawing a line: they will not fund an agency whose agents have killed two people in a single American city in a matter of weeks.

More than 100 House Democrats have already called for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s impeachment.

Minnesota’s senators made their position clear. “For those asking where we go from here: Not voting to fund ICE is a great place for us to start,” wrote Senator Tina Smith. Senator Amy Klobuchar added: “We call on our Republican colleagues to stand up. They know this is wrong.”

Seven in ten Americans—including half of Republicans—say the country is “out of control” under Trump, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll conducted before ICE executed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this weekend. The sentiment cuts across all demographics: 70% of white respondents, 79% of Black respondents, and 74% of seniors all agree things have gone off the rails. Read the full story.

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from destroying evidence in the killing of Alex Pretti—but Minnesota says DHS is already tampering with the crime scene. This isn’t just about one shooting—it’s about whether states can investigate federal agents who execute people, or if Trump’s goons are above the law. Read the full story.

More than 800,000 Americans are freezing in the dark after a “historic” winter storm knocked out power from New Mexico to North Carolina, with forecasters warning of “crippling to locally catastrophic impacts” from heavy ice and record cold. Trump approved emergency declarations in 12 states while energy officials scrambled to prevent blackouts. This is what climate chaos looks like when our crumbling infrastructure meets extreme weather, and the people losing power are the ones who can least afford it. Read the full story.

Rep. Maxwell Frost—the first Gen Z member of Congress and an outspoken progressive—was punched in the face by a Trump supporter who spewed racist slurs at him while he attended the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. The attacker, Christian Joel Young, was arrested, but this is where we are now—a sitting Black congressman can’t attend a film festival without being physically attacked by a MAGA racist. Read the full story.

On Friday, we asked, was January 6 a failed coup or a riot? 77 percent said failed coup.

FSNKP voted “Riot fueled by Trump.”

Anna voted failed coup but said, “Actually it was both.”

Larry voted failed coup: “An attempt to deny the legitimate election results is an attempted coup.”

Here are some stories the algorithms may be keeping out of your feed.

While Donald Trump brags about stock market numbers and claims credit for whatever economic indicator happens to be trending upward on any given day, one economist is sounding an alarm about damage that won’t show up in quarterly reports but will devastate the country for generations.

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